Sacramento daily record-union., 1887-08-06

Legislature IN providing a scheme of aid
20 insure the building OF transcontinental
railway, the financial depression Of the
time, and subsequent conditions attached,
greatly narrowed its beneficial character for
the corporate company. Not only was ii not
contemplated that the same benefcence
would early exert itself to establish
powerful rival to the first road, which had
Just been constructed under difficulties
deemed by some of the best judgments in
surmountable, bat neither was it CON
ceiyed that prior to the obligations of the
company becoming due there would be
such an arbitrary exercise of sovereign
power by the Government as to cripple
the credit of the original enterprise, by
requiring payments in advance Nor is it
justifable, we take it. for the creditor who
uses the road of his debtor for ordinary
business purposes, TO refuse, as did the
Government payment for the service, be-
cause in the far future the creditor must
pay to it large sum of money.
Whatever the coldly legal view may be,
the equities are strong in favor of the
debtor The Government has benefited
as has already been shown before the Com
mission in a manner more forcible and
convincing than can be possibly done in
any newspaper generalization-a thousand
fold more than was anticipated by the most
sanguine friends of the scheme. Indeed,
if every dollar claimed to be due TO the
Government from the railroad company
should be carried to the account of total
loss, and not one of the just offsets claimed
be allowed it would remain that the
United States has been the beneficiary by
its bargain, to an extent unprecedented in
any scheme of Government investment by
any nation of earth.
1t Is not necessary that in this considera-
tion the attempt be made to recite in de-
tail even the title indices of these benefits.
In this day of intelligence, even a rapid
and incomplete generalization will serve to
recall them to every impartial mind, and
nowhere with more force than in Califor-
MIA. Besides. we assume because of the
historic interest of the recital, that the
general public has followed in detail the
exposition as made by Governor Stanford
before the Commissioners, in which he has
refuted the calumnies, laid bare the false
hoods, and given quietus to the slanders
which have been so industriously circu-
lated these many years, concerning the
management Of the company and the use
of its income. We can now form some
adequate estimate of the amazing patience
and enduring courage with which the
builders Of the railway system of Califor-
MIA have fortified their waiting all these
years, though hourly stung by the most
Infamous ISLANDERS, and though their mo-
tives have been constantly impugned and
their purposes persistently and cruelty mis-
interpreted.
We repeat, that in no confined space
can the recital of the Govern
ment's vast gains by its invest
ment in aid of the railroad,
be attempted, or any entry made upon an
analysis of the proofs adduced in support
OF the equitable claims of the corporation,
even had it been our purpose to have en-
deavored to do so. Still, it may be profit
bly, recalled in merest generalization
of the results of the building of the road,
that the development of the country the
marketing of public lands; the gain of
time by decade of years in the compile
tion of the line far in advance of the call
of the contract; the reclamation of the
deserts; the practical elimination of space
IN commercial transactions; the aug
mented revenue from taxation and imposts;
the driving out of savagery and the sub
stitution of American civilization of the
better order for the rudeness of the from
tier and the plains the development of
Territories, out of which vigorous States
sprang full armed; the binding of
members of the nation into an insepara-
BILE and harmonious Union; the opening up
across the breast of the continent of
great highway over which rolls the COM
merce Of large part OF the world; the
ease of military and postal transportation;
the wonderful influence upon agriculture !;
the impetus given to trade-that those
and a score of other considerations make
up such stupendous aggregate of gain
and profit to the Federal Government
and the people of the nation that against
it no money consideration can for a mo-
ment stand. Before it the coldly legal
and formal demands of an exacting bond
will eventually yield in the interests of
the broad equities Of debtor who has
been so greatly less a beneficiary than the